.■■<^<~/c^J2 




f 

Inaugurate ^kmts, 

COLUMBIA COLLEGE, 

Published by order of the Board of Trustees. 



mi 



AT THE INAUGURATION OF 



MR. CHARLES KING 



3U jlresttomt of Columbia College, Jto-fiorlr, 



ON 



7 



r*t^^*~c\ 



Wednesday, November 28, 1849, 



IN THE COLLEGE CHAPEL. 



*V0l* 



PRINTED FOR THE COLLEGE. 




SNOWDEN, PRINTER, 70 WALL STREET, (COURIER & ENQUIRER BUILDING.) 

1849. 



omm^m^to®^ 



OF 



&l)e JPresilrent of Columbia College. 



At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of Columbia 
College, on Monday, the 7th November, 1849, Mr. Charles 
King was chosen President of the Institution, vice N. F. 
Moore, L. L. D., resigned, and entered the next day upon the 
duties of the office. 

A Committee of the Trustees was appointed, however, to 
arrange a more formal inauguration at a future day ; and, 
accordingly, this Committee, consisting of General Edward 
W. Laight, Chairman of the Board, and of Judge J. L 
Mason and Messrs. Ogden Hoffman and Robert Ray, 
designated Wednesday, the 28th day of November, as the 
time, and the College Chapel as the place, for the inaugura- 
tion. 

Invitations, on behalf of the Board of Trustees, were 
issued by the Committee to the chief officers of the State 
and City Governments, to the Members of Congress and of 
the Legislature, to the United States and State Judges, to the 
Chancellor and to the Professors of the University, to the 
Principal and Professors of the Free Academy, to the Trus- 



tees of the Public Schools, to the Chamber of Commerce, 
to the Public Press generally, and an invitation was given 
through the newspapers, to the alumni of the College, to» 
the parents and relatives of students, and to all interested 
in education, to attend. 

At a very early hour the College Chapel was thronged, 
and numbers, unable to obtain entrance, went away. 

At eight o'clock precisely, the hour appointed, the Trus- 
tees of the College, accompanied by such of the invited 
guests as had attended and by the President and Faculty of 
the College, entered the Chapel. 

The Rev. Dr. Haight, one of the Trustees, invoked the 
blessings of Heaven on the proceedings, and then General 
Laight thus addressed the Assembly : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : — 

As Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Columbia Col- 
lege, it is made my duty to present to you, to its alumni, to 
its under-graduates and to its Professors, Charles King, 
recently elected to preside over this Institution ; and here I 
take the liberty to express my firm belief, that, under his ad- 
ministration, the prosperity of this ancient seminary will 
suffer no diminution. 

Mr. King then took his seat as President, whereupon 
Professor McVickar, a^ Dean of the Faculty, rose and ad- 
dressed him as follows: 



Mr. President : — 

In rising to congratulate you in the name and on the 
part of the Faculty, and as Senior Professor of the Institu- 
tion over which you are called on to preside, my first words 
will, I fear, seem too sad for the occasion. But the memo- 
ries of the Past crowd too thick upon me, in using that 
appellation, to permit me to proceed without giving them 
utterance. I cannot but here remember that you are the 
fourth incumbent towards whom I have addressed the same 
official word. 1 cannot but remember that of those who 
stood with me when I first, as Professor, used it, no one now 
remains on earth. President and Professors, all gone ! Of 
that academic circle, 1 stand alone ! Such are the trials 
of life ! But more — in using these official words, I cannot 
but recall how much of my heart's blood and life's labor 
has been mixed up with this College; and of its life, how 
large a proportion has been identified with my own. Of the 
95 years of its duration, more than one-third has been under 
my teaching. This is what no living voice but mine may 
say — nay, no voice now mute, within these walls, ever could 
say it. Of all servants this College has ever had, I am the 
one of longest service. This boast at least, "no man," (to 
use the Apostle's words,) "may stop me of, within the 
regions of Achaia." But, Sir, in the spirit of boasting I 
say it not ; rather in that of deep humility — and still more 
in the light of a prospective apology — lest in the freedom of 
untutored speech, I may say that which might seem to 
trench on the new relations between us, or on the respect 



due to the honorable Board of Trustees, before whom I 
speak. Should, then, aught too freely said thus escape 
me, I pray you, Sir, and them, to lay it to this account 
— to the charge of one whose steps, since he came to man's 
estate, have not often wandered, and his heart never, from 
this home and work-shop of his youth, his manhood, and 
his age. 

Permit to me, sir, another debt of the olden time. I re- 
member well — the first time — as Professor, I said, " Mr. 
President." It was in addressing one who has long since 
gone to his rest and his reward — a good old man — and it is 
a comforting reflection to me now, that my youth was then 
in some degree the stay of his age — and lightened the load 
of over anxious labor, to as devoted and as efficient a Presi- 
dent as this College ever had. — Sir, Dr. Harris was a man 
under-rated by those who looked at him from without — for 
his abilities were moderate and his humility great, but he had 
within, a tender heart — great firmness and deep piety — the 
three greatest elements of Academic Discipline — and he 
ruled accordingly, through the heart, the reason, and the con- 
science of -the student. But above all, Religion was with 
him the corner stone of discipline — he built upon that Rock 
— " how can you respect man," he would indignantly ask of 
some irreverent pupil, " if you fear not God V and, at such 
words, I have seen obstinacy melted into penitential tears. 
Therefore, Mr. President, did he hold our Chapel services in 
relation to College duties, as builders hold their corner stone 
foundations — all important to be rightly laid — and therefore, 
too, did he seek to make them with the students personal de- 
votions, using to that end a portion of the Liturgy of the 
Church, as prescribed in-the original charter, together with an 
appropriate Collect, all which he had suitably arranged and 
bound and marked with the College name for daily use, in 



a thin quarto volume : and I count it, sir, a most happy omen, 
that on the very day of your election, that same original 
volume was recovered from the dust under which for years 
it had lain, and replaced, for that day at least, on the desk 
before you. May I add without offence, " Let not the dust 
again gather upon it /" 

But to my present duty. In the name of my associates 
and for myself, I hail you, sir, as our Presiding officer, and 
here pledge to you, individually and officially, our best aid in 
word and deed, in the fulfilment of the high and holy trust 
on which this night you solemnly enter ; and I do this with 
the more confidence, sir, as reading in your character, not- 
withstanding your newness to the task, some of the choicest 
elements of the Academic Ruler — the courtesy of the gen- 
tleman, the decision of the soldier, the ready talent of the 
man of the world, and above all, the warm and generous 
sympathies of a frank and fearless nature — powerful to win 
the hearts of all — above all, those -of ingenuous and ardent 
youth. In these native elements of the Ruler, kind Nature 
has been bountiful to you, sir, and you have but to add to 
them that facility which practice in College duties gives, and 
that growing love for them which habit and a higher wisdom 
brings forth, to be to our beloved College all it needs and all 
it can desire. 

But you have another claim upon our confidence — your 
ancestral strain. You bear, Sir, an honored name. The 
son of Rufus King, alarum et venerabile nomen, may not be 
received within these walls, without awakening both remem- 
brance of the father's talents and virtues, and confidence in 
those of his son. Your honored father, Sir, for eighteen 
years served this College as member of its Board of Trus- 
tees ; and though often, by his more public duties, withdrawn 
from their meetings, was yet never wanting in its hours of 



8 

* 

trial. I may not for myself forget, that to his approving 
voice, with others, I owe it, that I now stand here to 
address you. Still less may I forget for the College, the 
debt of gratitude she owes him, when, in her hour of peril . 
with expediency pleading against principle, and talents 
against modest worth, he threw his weight into the scale of 
honor, and, in conjunction with the late Bishop Hob art, 
saved, at the sacrifice of private friendship, the integrity of 
the College's original Charter, and the fidelity of its religious 
trust. The son of such a father, we may well say, cannot, 
when entrusted with a still higher responsibility, cannot b& 
wanting in devotion to the same sacred cause. 

But, to turn to another poiiat. — As touching the claims of 
our College to the respect and confidence of our common 
country, you, Sir, who are so familiar with the history of 
that country, need no prompter. Thus much, however 
permit one of her affectionate sons to say that although 
not yet a century old, there is no College in our land that 
has written her name in fairer characters on its annals, or 
left deeper footprints on its soil. Before our Revolutionary 
struggle, while itself was scarce fledged, our College took 
an eagle's flight, and gave to the nation and its coming con- 
test, I might almost say, its sword and shield — the Marcel- 
lus and the Fabtus of our Rome- — Hamilton and Jay. — 
What, I pray you, were the story of our Revolution without 
these names ? So, too, again — when that eventful struggle 
was over, and order was to be built up out of ruin, what 
College of our land, I ask, furnished architects of their 
country's greatness earlier or abler, more zealous or more 
successful, than our own — even dismantled and robbed as 
she was, through the license of war, of all the usual aids and 
appliances of learning and science ? Scarce had the din of 
arms given way in our city to the quiet arts of peace, before 



9 

she sent forth among her sons, as before, leaders to their 
countrymen — only now in a peaceful field, turning the 
sword into the ploughshare. Need I name but one, as a 
sample? That far-sighted statesman— the very ttoXitikoc 
of ancient Greece — one born to rule the " fierce Demo- 
cratic" — a politician not wanting in personal ambition, but 
then marrying that ambition to great designs of national 
benefit. After this description, need I name to you De 
Witt Clinton, as our Alumnus ? — he who, in " marrying" 
the Lakes to the Atlantic, and his fame to the deed, has 
both immortalized his name and enriched his country, by 
opening- for it a deeper channel of wealth than American 
history assigns to any individual man since the days of 
Columbus. , But these, you may say, are a past story. — 
11 Where are your living sons ?" Look around you, Sir, (in 
society I mean,) and gather them at will, on the right hand 
and on the left. From the Gubernatorial chair — from the 
Senator's seat — from the Judge's bench — from the Pulpit, 
the Bar, the Professor's chair, and the Merchant's desk — 
from every form and grade of honest and honorable life 
among us — gather them at will! — While for the present 
ripening fruits of our College, I need but point you to the 
thronged benches of our students before you, and their 
intelligent and eagle glances, to satisfy you and all, that 
they are not likely to diminish the fame of their Alma 
Mater, or forget the glory of their fathers. Into the Presi- 
dency of such a College, Sir, do you this night formally 
enter: and little prone as I am to such thoughts, I can 
almost envy you the pride and pleasure of wielding for your 
country's good, such instrument of power as the govern- 
ment of such a College gives. But I am content that it 
should rest in right hands — where there is both an eye to 
see and a heart to feel. In the words of Gray, on a similar 
occasion : — 



10 

" Thy liberal heart and judging eye 
The flower unheeded shall descry, 
And bid it round Heaven's altar shed 
The beauties of its blushing head ; — 
Shall raise from earth the lowly gem. 
To glitter on the diadem."' 

But to open a more dubious question. To the Presidency 
of our College, sir, your accession has been widely hailed 
o'n the peculiar score of being a public and a business man, 
opening thereby a new sphere of popular influence, and 
creating a new bond of sympathy between the College and 
the needs and wants of our great commercial metropolis. 
Wisely used, sir, as I doubt not such influence and sympathy 
will be, I, too, join in the congratulation ; and yet, in all such 
sympathetic control from without, I cannot but read some 
shadow of danger. To "popularize education," Mr. Presi- 
dent, to accommodate College studies to what are deemed 
the practical wants of a business community, is an experi- 
ment, as you well know, that has often been tried and as 
often signally failed, here and elsewhere, at home and abroad. 
Our own partial trial of it, a few years since, was perhaps 
too short to be held a conclusive one. That, however, of 
the London University as being a thorough trial, may be so 
regarded. Devised as it was, by some of the acutest and 
most practical minds of England — carried out as it was, by 
some of the most talented of its teachers, and supported as 
it was, by the wealth of the greatest commercial city on 
earth — what more could be demanded, and yet it failed — 
failed utterly, so far as its fundamental principle was con- 
cerned, viz : that of popularizing education — while all its 
actual success and strength has come from the very methods 
of education which itself was established to overthrow. 
And this result I state, Mr. President, not on vague report, 
but on the personal acknowledgments to myself, made by 
the very teachers and founders themselves. A deeper cause 
of ill-success for such plans must then be fonnd, than want 



11 

of skill or means, and do we not find it, I ask, in the very 
principle which it advocates — Education governed from 
without — this is its root error -ngurov ipevdag. I care A not 
from what quarter that dictation come — from the will of 
rulers or from the voice of the multitude — it is usurpation 
whence-soever it come, in the eye equally of the scholar, the 
Statesman and the Christian. Education, sir, is a mission 
from God to man — the teacher and not the taught, in the 
community — giving and not taking impress — moulding and 
not to be moulded by the mass on which it is sent to operate ; 
and, therefore, looking not, as such scheme proposes, to what 
is, but what ought to be, in the community. Such, sir, I 
hold to be the true nature of all sound education — essen- 
tially an aggressive power, making man what he would not 
be — an antagonistic power, fighting everywhere against 
man's natural propensities — in fine, (to use holy words,) " the 
salt of the earth" — and we teachers, of whatever grade, 
must hold it our mission to watch, lest that salt lose its salt- 
ness. But to return to the application. While I, therefore, 
unite in such congratulation, that a " public man" is placed 
at our head, I yet do it with the more confidence, as know- 
ing that your own education, sir, was in schools of another 
mark — in the schools of our ancestral land — where solid 
learning and laborious study and careful training — intellec- 
tual, moral, religious training — is made to lie at the founda- 
tion of all other attainments in education. I say " training," 
sir, in contradistinction to mere imparted knowledge — not 
learning merely, not science only, not dogmatic opinions at 
all — but that quiet, solid, unobtrusive " training," which con- 
stitutes, I may say, distinctly, Anglo-Saxon education, 
wherever that race is found. In my own survey of foreign 
schools, sir, some years since, deeper learning I found in the 
schools of Germany — deeper science in the schools of France, 
and more precocious and versatile talent in our own ; but 



I* 

deeper elements of national safety, that best product of edu- 
cation, the union of the gentleman, the scholar and the 
Christian, I found nowhere more truly worked out than in the 
higher schools of England. Nor do I deem such praise of 
English schools an unfilial or unpatriotic eulogium, any 
more than I would, the praises of Shakspeare or of Milton : 
for Anglo-Saxon education, in all its sterling virtues, is our 
heritage as well as theirs ; and to that same deep inbred 
strain resulting from it, do we of the new world, owe our 
national glory, as they of the old world do theirs. With 
them of England, it has not only made of a little island a 
world-wide empire, but it has based that empire on foundations 
too deep for the currents of popular caprice to overthrow. 
The whirlwind of revolution which has of late years deso- 
lated the fairer lands of Continental Europe, has passed 
harmless over the sterner soil of England. The storm has 
uprooted all of shallower growth than the old-fashioned 
English oak. Learning could not save Germany — science 
could not save France ; but the old Anglo-Saxon educa- 
tion — education interpenetrated by religion — could and did 
save England, and I pray to God may long save her. Let 
me not then, sir, in this be misinterpreted. What I here 
stand to praise and plead for, is not English schools or Eng- 
lish Universities, but the maintenance and advance in our 
land and wherever decayed the restoration t of what may 
well be termed the scholars's birthright, the common law of 
our race, our Anglo-Saxon inheritance — solid, classical, 
religious training — coming down as it does, from the time of 
Alfred, bearing as it does, the marks of good King Edward, 
and standing side by side in English history with the Magna 
Charta of John and the Bill of Rights of the Revolution. 
As no American citizen fears to defend the principles of the 
latter, because written in England's annals, so let no Ameri- 
can scholar, the former, because best exemplified in the old 



13 

English Universities now standing. Permit me then,. sir, to 
open this point, of the primitive University education of 
England — so far, at least, as to shew that in them and their 
government, we find the truest model of what should be our 
own — the old Anglo-Saxon, democratic education ; and in 
their actual wealth, strength and national influence, do we 
read the natural results of the popular principles on which 
they were originally constituted, and by which they still 
continue to be, in the main, governed. Such exposition, 
though not new to yourself, sh>may yet be so to many, and 
thus, perhaps, open to some new thoughts as to what our 
American Colleges may become for our own rapidly rising 
Empire. 

English Universities then, are in this country greatly mis- 
understood. They are supposed to be, in their nature, a 
combination of Colleges — in their government, under 
aristocratic, if not rather Royal dictation — and their 
wealth, the result of patronage or of law. Now, in each 
one of these particulars, there lies a fundamental error. — 
The Universities are not a union of Colleges ; but, on the 
contrary, far older than the Colleges they include — the 
whole of the College system, with its tutors and private 
statutes, being an after growth, and forming no part of the 
scheme here recommended. In proof of this priority, we 
find many thousand students at Oxford — when, as yet, 
there was no College there — or, at most, but a single one — 
University College — which boasts, doubtfully, Alfred's 
name as its founder, and exhibits his bust in its halls. — 
Thus too, again, as late as the Fourteenth Century, we find 
but three Colleges in Oxford — while there were in it at least 
three hundred halls, for the accommodation of its University 
students. Nor is the government of those ancient corpo- 
rations better understood. Instead of being an aristocratic 



14 

or Royal polity, it is truly a Republican one — res publico, — ■ 
a common weal — one in which all its members enjoy a 
common franchise, and exercise equal rights — thus making 
every University Measure, the free expression of the com- 
mon voice of all its sons. Now such, contrary to the 
American use of it, is the original and true meaning of the 
term "University" — (Universitas) — i. e., "community" — 
many members constituting one body — having reference 
therein, not as it is here used, to the wide circle of studies 
pursued, but to the wide chicle of members included — hold- 
ing, as members, all its worthy sons — admitting them, upon 
satisfactory examination, to a share alike in its honors, it's 
privileges, and its governing powers, and purifying itself, if 
need be, of unworthy members, by depriving and degrading 
them from the same. Of this primeval, Anglo-Saxon, self- 
governed Republic of Letters, the Universities of England 
still retain the essential features. The Executive govern- 
ment within them is mainly in the hands of Proctors and 
Examiners — holding office by rotation, and changed every 
two years ; — while of the supreme legislative body, viz : 
the " House of Convocation," — every graduate of the Uni- 
versity who has been found qualified to take his master's 
degree, is ex officio a member and a voter ; and this privilege 
is for life, or until, for cause, deprived. Therefore is it, that 
every great University question in England becomes a 
national question — bringing forth, as it does, its sons from 
every quarter of the realm, to gather around, with heart 
and hand and free voice, as more than once I have seen 
them do — old and young — rich and poor — cleric and lay — 
titled and commoner — thronging into the Senate House, 
around their beleagured Alma Maler, like children around 
some threatened home roof-tree — to maintain her cause, 
enlarge her forces, strengthen her bulwarks, or rebuke her 
enemies. Such, Mr. President, is a picture of fact — not 



15 

fancy. But equally in error is the opinion, that their great 
wealth is the fruit of royal or aristocratic patronage. Far 
from it ! Kings and Queens have, doubtless, occasionally 
been among their donors ; but even from them, it came as 
gifts of love, or, perhaps, sacrifices of penitence, pro salute 
animce suce — not, therefore, in the spirit of vulgar patronage, 
as here supposed — not, as too often in our land, money 
wrested by entreaty, from cold hearts or unwilling hands — 
not the alms of strangers — not the dole of a government 
charity — not the equivalent Jfeid by pride for flattered 
vanity — but flowing as from a full fountain — a stream of 
love — the free gifts of sons and their unpaid affections — or, 
perchance, if coming from prudential calculation, still the 
wise outlay of those who were willing to expend their 
wealth for what was their own, in law as well as love. — 
Such, sir, are the sources of strength to an English Uni- 
versity; and therefore do they stand like their own ancestral 
oaks, and coming down from the same good old time — 
strong, not because man has built his puny fence around 
them, but because they have been watered by the dews of 
Heaven, and have struck their roots deep into the hearts 
and homes of the nation. Now is not this, I ask, a more 
republican picture of education, than our own Colleges 
present ? — and is it not more in accordance with all our 
boasted democratic institutions and principles ? But what 
is still more to the point — does it not afford an adequate 
solution to their possession, and our want of national influ- 
ence and wide-spread patronage ? Does it not explain 
why those Universities are part and parcel of the life of the 
nation, while our American Colleges are found to stand, as 
they are charged, falsely through our negligence, with 
doing — like dead things, amid the living interests of society 
— bolstered up by laws and patronage from without, instead 
of a living force within? — taking so little hold as they do 



16 

■on the sympathies even of their own Alumni, and gathering 
so little as they do, from their subseqnent wealth ? Is not 
this the solution ? Think you, sir, such would be the case, 
were their diplomas made — title deeds to an estate — giving 
to them an elective franchise in a common body, and 
securing to them the privileges of citizenship in that Re- 
public ? Would then zeal, money, or labor be wanting in 
our service ? Would libraries, apparatus, scholarships, 
prizes, be asked for, as now, in vain ? Surely not ! At the 
banner cry, "Columbia, to tiie rescue!" how would its hosts 
start to life, like the Scottish chieftain's warriors, where least 
thought of — " from copse, and heath, and cairn" — from the 
plough and the machine-shop, and the manufactory, as well 
as from the bar, the pulpit and the desk — to aid and strengthen 
their common home ; or, let me rather say, (speaking as I do 
before the first soldier* of our land, with his laurels fresh upon 
him,) like as when, on some doubtful field, he has marked a 
perilled banner, and bade the drums beat, to the color ! — how 
quick, through willing hearts and united hands, that failing 
banner has arisen — risen higher than before — and been borne 
aloft in the arms of victory, till planted on the highest citadel 
of fame. So would it be, fellow alumni, (to you I speak,) 
with our College pennon — none in our land, I well believe, 
would then float higher, or wider, or fairer. 

But to draw these thoughts to their conclusion — let no 
American mind deem this a picture of fancy — not only has 
it been realized, as we have seen elsewhere, but it is silently, 
step by step, advancing to be realized here. The principle of 
self-government is alike the spirit of our age and of our land, 
and the very barometer of our progress. The Faith I mean 
that every institution which the true interests of society de- 

* General Scott, who was seated beside the President 



17 

mand, has within itself the vital force by which it lives, and 
the strength by which it stands ; and, therefore, when left to 
itself, the conservative wisdom by which it is to be best 
ordered and regulated. I pretend not here, sir, to speak in 
the spirit of prophecy, when I say, such days are coming; but 
I do claim to speak under a thoughtful experience of the 
past, when I say that such change in our system of educa- 
tion, throwing it upon self-government, is in accordance with 
the changes that have actually come over all our institu- 
tions — political, religious, social and financial. Time was, 
sir, as we well know, when these all were governed from 
without — when rulers were to be imposed and not chosen — 
when religion was to be supported by Government — when all 
professions were to be guarded by law — when banking, to be 
safe, must be made a monopoly — and even the loaf of daily 
bread regulated and determined in weight and price. Such 
things were, but the wisdom of experience has taught our 
rulers another lesson, and that is, that under the guardianship 
of general statutes, all these things may be left safely to self- 
control — to the guidance of watchful self interest, and to the 
strength and wisdom that union imparts. Thus has reli- 
gion severed itself, and become strong as it has done so — 
thus, too, the medical profession — thus, in great measure, the 
legal — and thus, altogether, every varied form of trade, 
labor, enterprise and finance. What, then, forbids but that 
education, collegiate and other, under wise guidance, should 
follow — finding that it, too, has within itself a vital life — that 
the Republic of Letters is not the scholar's dream, but may 
and will be realized by every College in our land, wherever 
its sons are embodied into its service, entrusted with an elec- 
tive franchise within it, and made the final guardians of the 
honor and prosperity of their own Alma Mater. 

On another strong ground, too, sir, this principle may be 

3 



18 

advocated, as the surest safeguard of our political freedom. 
That, sir, comes not from popular education alone — that se- 
curity Austria has had even beyond us, in our boasted, public 
schools. Nor is it free education only — i. e., unpaid for, — 
that gives the security — that, Prussia has provided, for, more 
amply than we have done — but it is education free in the 
sense of being self-governed — i. e., left in the hands of its 
own sons — working out its own free results — not centralized 
into one focus, but the light of a thousand independent 
centres, and not pared, dowr? and squared to suit a Govern- 
mental policy, either in books or teaching, but the free action 
of free minds — suiting education to the wants and need of 
intellectual, social and immortal man. But leaving to future 
time these higher views, permit me, sir, to close with the 
enumeration of two or three specific points of improvement, 
to which, in the name of my associates, I would gladly turn 
your attention, and that of the Board of Trustees, in whose 
presence I speak : — 

1. The want felt, in our College, of larger and more 
scholarlike provision for deserving, needy students. Our 
free scholarships are perhaps ample in number, but they 
bring no means of support. What is further wanted are 
endowed scholarships, exhibitions and open monied prizes — 
enabling the friendless and penniless scholar to fight his 
way through College, "proprio marte" — not as a favored 
stipendiary into a Benefice, gained by importunity and con- 
cealed through shame — but to such a prize as talent, learn- 
ing and good conduct alone can secure — the palm of victory, 
as well as the means of support 

2. Our public examinations to be made more formal, in- 
teresting and influential — by the presence of the Trustees 
as Judges — by distinguishing and calling out to a higher ex- 



10 

animation those who compete for honors — by the use of the 
pen in such contest, as well as " viva voce'' answers — and by- 
opening all such competition to a free and generous rivalry- — 
admitting disappointed candidates to the right of " chal- 
lenge" and further trial — and, finally, by a more public and 
permanent publication of such honors. 

3. As an aid to our discipline, we need that the link of 
communication between the College and the parents or 
guardians of our students be strengthened by more frequent 
and formal intercourse. This need is not perhaps with us as 
great as with Resident Colleges, and yet, in one light, it is 
still more so, since our hold upon the student is less. They 
may be to him, " in loco Parentis, , ' > we cannot — therefore, we 
must call in that influence to our aid — a reward to the diligent 
and the good — a terror only to the idle and irregular. 

And lastly, If I may be permitted again to urge that root 
of all true discipline, I would say, we need to make our 
daily Chapel services more effective, by making them strictly 
devotional on the part of the students themselves, through a 
responsive service : and thus sending them to their respective 
lecture rooms, with their minds sobered, their spirits calmed, 
their sense of responsibility deepened, their studies exalted 
into piety, and their academic duties into acts of religion. 
Such is the blessing, which Reason teaches must follow this 
duty rightly performed — and does not Faith add to it one 
still deeper, viz : the blessing promised to those who glorify 
the Giver in His gifts, and all whose works are "begun, con- 
tinued and ended in Him V 

But, sir, I have done. I have too long trespassed on your 
patience, and that of the honorable Board of Trustees, as 
well as all others here assembled to listen to your discourse. 



20 

I conclude, then, as I began. Personally and officially, in 
my own name and that of my associates, I here pledge to 
you, Mr. President, the cordial co-operation of each and all 
of us, in every measure of yours, that may conduce to the 
peace and order, the honor and the welfare of the College — 
praying for you, sir, an honorable and successful adminis- 
tration, and commending you, for that end, to God's guid- 
ance — the Giver of every good and perfect gift, and without 
whom " nothing is strong — nothing is holy." 



After the conclusion of Professor McVickar's Address, 
the President read the Discourse which follows ; — 



Mr. Chairman, 

And Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees: — 

In accepting the high and honorable office to which it has 
been your pleasure to call me, I am neither unmindful of its 
great responsibilities, nor of my own insufficiency, adequately 
to meet them. But in full reliance, gentlemen, upon your 
intelligent and steadfast support — upon your cheerful and 
earnest co-operation, gentlemen of the Faculty, and upon 
the ingenuous appreciation by the young gentlemen, Students 
of the College, of all well-intended efforts for their good, I 
have entered upon the duties of the office into which I am 
now formally inaugurated. 

Mr. Dean of the Faculty, I have listened with a full heart 
to the kind congratulations with which you have welcomed 
me. I accept them as pledges of harmonious intercourse, 
in our official relations, not less than in our personal rela- 
tions, and as made alike in your own behalf, and in that of 
your distinguished associates in the Faculty of the College. 

Your mention of an honored father's name, in connection 
with mine, touched both my affections and my ambition ; 
and, in proportion as that father was instrumental, in his 
character as Trustee, in promoting the welfare of the Col- 
lege in past days, will be my endeavor, in the more responsi- 
ble office of President, to walk — haudpassibus cequis indeed, 
but still to walk in his footsteps, and to carry out the good 
work of those who have gone before us. 



22 

For, if, in the language of the Roman classic, it be the 
natural dictate of ingenuous natures " summa ope niti vitam 
silentio ne transeant, et memoriam nostri quam maxime Ion- 
gam efficere," — if all desire to do something in life which 
shall make men unwilling wholly to forget them after death, 
it is hardly less natural to exult in the good name that has 
been handed down to us ; and, therefore, so to fashion our 
course as that it may not depart from ancestral renown, 
avito honore, nor desecrate memories which the grave has 
placed beyond the reach of calumny or the fear of change. 

In the illustrious names which you have cited of those 
whom our College has sent forth into the world, to do battle 
in it for the right, and to prove, as so many of them have 
proved, the thoroughness and the value of the training received 
within its walls, you furnish not to me only, but to the 
students who hear you, fresh stimulus so to fulfil, each in his 
sphere, his duties here, that future times may point to the 
alumni of this hour as not unworthy of their great fore- 
runners ; and in their praise and just renown, we all — you, 
gentlemen of the Faculty, and you, gentlemen of the Board 
of Trustees, as well as myself, may be remembered as having 
in our various appointed stations, contributed somewhat to 
the eminence of these our disciples. 

It seems, too, a natural and praiseworthy display which 
you, sir, who for so many years have been honorably con- 
nected with the College, thus make of her jewels. By them 
we desire to be judged, not meaning, if honest effort and en- 
tire devotion of faculties to the task can effect it, that the 
future shall be shamed by the past, because of any falling off 
in the standard of education, or in the character, qualities 
and acquirements of our graduates. So far, therefore, as 
these great names give us a claim upon the public for op- 



23 

portunity to send forth more of such a stamp, I fear not to 
offer the pledge in your name, gentlemen, and in my own, 
that what has been, shall again be—favente Deo, 

On another point, which in so kind a spirit you have 
touched upon — my own early education — I may not dilate; yet 
I cannot hear it alluded to, as you have alluded to it, without 
recalling, with deep emotions of veneration and gratitude, 
the enlightened and ever watchful parental solicitude to 
which I was indebted for so many and such precious oppor- 
tunities of thorough education ; nor without recalling — and 
this I address especially to those among my hearers who 
may be students — without recalling with bitter, but now un- 
availing regrets, how much too often those opportunities 
were neglected — how much too often that parental solicitude 
was sharpened by the self-willed presumption of youth 
which measured its own notions of duty, of advantage, and 
of pleasure, against the maturer judgment, and the calm and 
affectionate injunctions of parental anxiety and authority. 
Yet, imperfect as was the use made of the advantages of 
my school-boy days, so thorough was the instruction, and so 
generous the emulation at Harrow, an English public school, 
at which I passed six years, that it was impossible not to 
acquire, in that branch most relied upon — the Classics — some 
considerable proficiency ; and, together with tolerable pro. 
ficiency in Latin and Greek, some of that discipline of mind 
and accuracy of taste, which, in all but the most untoward 
natures, are the sure offspring of such studies. 

The strong bonds of fellowship formed at school and 
at college, outlast later bonds, and hence the influence 
which you so justly claim for the alumni of this Col- 
lege. Great indeed may that influence be upon the charac- 
ter, usefulness and progress of the College. Diverging into 
many different, opposite, and often conflicting paths, in after 



24 

life, as students do, the Alma Mater still remains the com- 
mon friend of all, and her festivals and solemnities, her 
rites and celebrations, should bring all back to the house- 
hold with feelings unchanged, affections unabated, and above 
all, with earnest purpose to uphold her interests and advance 
her renown. 

How indeed could they more acceptably discharge their 
duty, not to Alma Mater alone, but to their country, than by 
encouraging and sustaining the sound education and moral 
training whieh they themselves have enjoyed ? 

The influence of an educated class in a country like ours, 
where Opinion is King, and where consequently it is of such 
vital importance that opinion be founded in wisdom, cannot 
be overrated. In the wilderness of free minds, with no au- 
thority to restrain, no traditions to influence — and when to 
doubt and to deny is so much easier, and looks so much 
bolder and wiser, than to reason, to prove, and to believe — 
incalculable is the value of sound learning and careful moral 
training — if only as drawbacks or drags upon the rushing, 
headlong progress of the social machinery. 

Knowledge, indeed, is not Wisdom, though it is Power — 
and hence the greater necessity of that sound education 
which, while it supplies the demands of the intellect, takes 
care to cultivate the moral nature, and makes goodness and 
knowledge to go hand in hand. It is spirits thus finely 
touched to fine issues, that are best fitted to give direction 
to human affairs, and to maintain that equilibrium between 
the antagonist forces of our social and political systems, 
which constitute at once their power and their peace. 

If this be so, and if those to whom is committed the charge 
of education, can lay to their souls the grateful unction, that 



25 

they have had a share in invigorating this conservative in- 
fluence and agency, which, while maintaining what is good 
and. sound in old opinions and old habits, are not adverse to 
changes which reason and expediency may sanction — 
surely in such reflection, there is reward for the toils and 
anxieties inseparable from the career of a public instructor. 

To such reward, you, gentlemen of tjie Faculty, have 
made your claim good — and you will persevere in well 
doing. For me this career is now to begin, for although 
long occupied in pursuits not wholly dissimilar in aims with 
those of Collegiate Education — the improvement and refine- 
ment of the age — it was through an entirely dissimilar 
agency. 

On the threshold of this new career, it is natural to pause 
for a space, and consider well the course that is before me — 
to take a view of the whole ground — and thus be enabled to 
trace a chart for my future guidance. 

And the first place in my thoughts, as in my care, is given 
to you, young gentlemen, Students of the College. It is grate- 
ful to me to be able to say, that the intercourse between us 
within the brief period since I entered upon my duties, has 
been marked by manliness and gentlemanly consideration 
on your part. I anticipate, undoubtingly, that such will con- 
tinue to be the character of that intercourse. I ask for your 
confidence — your heart — for I shall enter with my whole 
heart into ail that may tend to promote the welfare, elevate 
the character, and encourage the progress of each and all 
of you. 

With large and varied experience of the world, and with 
the knowledge which that experience imparts — aided by 
early culture, and such desultory addiction to letters as a 



26 

hurried life would permit — I bring all that I am, and all thai 
I can, unreservedly, to your service. Time has not abated, 
nor use of the world weakened, my warm, natural sympa- . 
thies with youth. I still rejoice in its joyousness, and can 
pardon its thoughtlessness, and bear with its waywardness, 
and trust in its instinctive uprightness, ingenuousness and 
truth — Truth, above all, for where that is, all that is pre- 
cious exists, or may be engrafted. The Master, whose 
insight into human character was complete, has admirably 
said to youth : — 

" To thine own self be true,- 

And it must follow, as the night the day, — 
Thou canst not then be false to any man." 

I know, too, the temptations in the midst of which your 
age is especially set — temptations against which, my young 
friends, we are wont daily to invoke the Divine aid and 
protection ; which sincerely invoked and faithfully availed 
of, will not fail. In all seasons of doubt, of trial, and of 
dire temptation, I ask you to come to me, as to a sure friend, 
and not a stern monitor ; as to one in whom both duty and 
inclination will concur rather to persuade than to enforce ; 
but yet as one who, feeling deeply the responsibility of his 
station, must not and will not hesitate, when reason and 
mildness shall prove ineffectual, to maintain rigorously the 
discipline of the College. 

I have already referred to my own early education, and 
to the regrets, never to be allayed, with which I look back 
upon opportunities then neglected. Credite experto, my 
young friends, and be persuaded, that, as no after study can 
fully compensate for the neglected hours and opportunities 
of early youth, so no regrets, other than for crime, can be 
more poignant than those with which these neglected hours 
and opportunities are recalled. I exhort you to spare your- 



27 

selves these regrets — to pursue with unremitting steadiness 
and an intelligent sense of their value, the studies in which 
you are engaged, not as conscripts — not as forced laborers — 
but as willing disciples, who, by your own acts and signa- 
tures, have bound yourselves to diligence and obedience. — 
It may seem a thing indifferent to some of you now, to incur 
the displeasure of those in authority over you, and to be 
objects of their censure ; but a future day may bitterly prove 
that such things are not indifferent — when some bright 
hope shall be blasted, some long-cherished dream at the 
moment of being realized, be rudely dissolved by the record 
too surely preserved and produced, of early delinquency. 

And not only to avoid the evil consequences, in after life, 
of idleness and inattention at College, but for the sake of 
the positive advantages and gratifications so certain to flow 
from a course of diligence, do I urge this upon you. 

There is no pursuit, there is no position, there is no condi- 
tion in life, in which a cultivated mind and a refined moral 
nature, are not eminently self-rewarding, while they are sure 
passports to confidence and affection, if not to rewards, from 
others. The professional man, the merchant, the mechanic, 
the farmer, the sailor, the soldier, each and all, is better in 
his particular vocation, if thoroughly educated. The sol- 
dier, did I say? Why, gentlemen, we have before our 
eyes, to honor this occasion — and I esteem it a signal honor — 
and to give point and force to my remarks — the most illus- 
trious living example of a soldier, pre-eminent in all the 
knowledge and practices of war, and garlanded again, and 
again, and again, with the laurels of victory — felix fortis 
et invictus — who never yet, in the rush of battle, nor in the 
more trying scenes of the lingering and harrassing march 
through pestilential regions, nor under the provocation, so 
hard for a noble nature to bear, of treachery in a false foe, 



28 

or, harder yet, in false friends — nor in the plague-stricken 
camp — never forgot, for a moment, the lessons of his early 
education and moral training — never forgot that, with her 
glorious banner, his country confided to him her morals, her 
civilization, her respect for law, her reverence for religion, 
equally with her sword of war, — and nowhere, never in 
the career of Winfield Scott, has the victorious soldier 
in aught detracted from the character of the polite scholar, 
the virtuous citizen, and the Christian gentleman. 

..... Pariter pietate vel armis 
Egregius. 

In the light of such an example, I may say to each one of 
you, if you will give yourselves to the work and overcome 
temptation and sloth, in the language of the old Anchises, 

Si qua fata aspera rum/pas, 

Tu Marcellus eris. 

I could willingly prolong these remarks, my young friends, 
but the hour passes, and other topics and parties require my 
attention. I will, therefore, close this special address to you 
with a precept, often in the mouth of my old master of Harrow, 
Dr. Drury, whose clear ringing voice I almost seem now to 
hear — whose calm, firm eye I almost now feel the influence 
of; — a precept which, amid many things learned, and many 
more forgotten, since that day, dwells in my memory — that 
memory which forgets never — the memory of the heart. 

It is the concluding counsel of old Peleus to the young 
Achilles — 

Kiev apiCTSvelv tcai vnsipoKOV s[J.[ievat akXo)V. 

And now, ladies and gentlemen, permit me to address 
myself directly to you, as parents or relatives of the Stu- 
dents, and as representing in some sense, that public at 



29 



large, upon the favor and support of which, all our institu- 
tions of education must mainly depend. 

Your presence here this evening is a pledge that you duly 
appreciate the value of a Collegiate Education. 

It is in such Institutions, that, on the threshold of the 
world into which they are about to enter, and in which, 
according to the uses made of their opportunities at College, 
will be their honor and usefulness — the ingenuous youth of 
the land are to receive the impressions, the instructions and 
the example, which unfold the character, enlarge the intellect, 
and purify the heart. 

All this is embraced in the single word Education, which, 
the rudiments being received before, is here to be carried 
forward. The manners and the mind are both to be cared 
for — indeed, a cultivated mind of itself refines the manners — 
abeunt studia in mores. The dignity and independence of 
a free moral agent are to be conciliated with the respect for 
discipline and subordination and degree, indispensable alike 
to success in this world and in college. Here, in short, is to 
be fashioned, in the highest attainable perfection, the scholar, 
the citizen, the good man, the Christian gentleman. 

In order to bring about such results, we need your co- 
operation as parents— your co-operation as members of 
society. We claim, on behalf of Columbia College, that it 
offers in this great and populous city, rare advantages for 
education, and that it should find large sympathy and sup- 
port. A brief sketch of what the College aims at accom- 
plishing—of what in times past, it has accomplished— and 
what, with an earnest appliance of its means, and a fair and 
liberal support from the community, in the midst of which it 
is placed, it may reasonably hope still further to accomplish, 



30 

will, it is believed, be not wholly uninteresting to most of 
my hearers : and cannot fail, it is thought, to establish the 
claims of the College upon the city of New York for larger 
opportunities of doing the good it can do, and desires to do. 

Columbia College is an institution older than the Re- 
public; and from its establishment in the reign of George II. 
1754 — when it was first incorporated by royal charter — to 
the hour in which we live, with an interval of some five or 
six years during the Revolutionary war, when its Students 
were dispersed — its library and philosophical apparatus were 
scattered, and its buildings occupied as hospitals — it has 
been steadily and successfully at work, educating the youth 
of the country. 

Among its Alumni are to be found some of the most 
honored members of the Republic, to some of whom eloquent 
allusion has already been made by Professor McVickae. 
One name, however, not included in his list I must recall ; 
since from an early day to this now fleeting, from father and 
father's father to son, it has been found on our College rolls, 
and always with honor — it is that of Stevens,-- -John Ste- 
vens, of Hoboken, who, far in advance of his age, far in ad- 
vance of the old world and the new — perceived — I do not 
say invented, but perceived, railroads — for they were pre- 
sent to his mind in all the minute details of their use, and 
traversed by steam locomotives as they now exist and are 
worked, long before a steam locomotive or a railroad was 
any where in use. In steamboats and other applications of 
science and mechanics to the daily uses and wants of life, 
he was alike original and successful ; — and there are sons 
and grandsons of his now living, graduates of this College, 
who walk worthily in their forefathers' footsteps; and when 
unjust reproach is sometimes hazarded against our Institution, 



31 

as too monastic in its course of studies, and not devoting the 
requisite time to the application of science to the arts of 
life, reference may be boldly made to the name of Stevens, 
as at once vindicating the instruction, and adorning the 
annals, of the College. 

Its faculty has embraced some of the most learned and 
eminent Professors — and in its course of studies, is a wise 
union of the classics with the physical sciences. 

Although deriving its chief endowment from Trinity 
Church, it is in no just sense a sectarian institution, but opens 
its portals wide, and in a truly Catholic spirit, to all who will 
enter them in the pursuit of knowledge. As a proof of this 
fact, and as a guarantee that no change can come over this 
spirit, Sec viii. of the Act of the Legislature of March, 1810, 
relative to the Columbia College, gives authority to the Trus- 
tees to make all needful rules and regulations for carrying 
on the institution — with this express proviso, " that such or- 
dinances and by-laws shall not make the religious tenets of 
any person, a condition of admission to any privilege or 
office in the said College." Nor is this a late innovation 
upon the original grant, for the like proviso is found in the 
Royal Charter, wherein it is stipulated that the by-laws and 
ordinances and orders to be made for conducting the business 
of the College shall * not tend to exclude any persons of any 
religious denomination whatever, from equal liberties and 
advantage of education, or from any of the degrees, liberties, 
privileges, benefits and immunities of said College, on ac- 
count of his particular tenets in matters of religion." 

A turther proof of this truly Catholic spirit is to be found 
m the fact, that the original charter required, in addition to 
other Trustees named, " that the Rector of Trinity Church, 
the senior Minister of the Reformed Protestant Dutch 



S2 

Church, the Minister of the French Church, and the Minis- 
ter of the Presbyterian Church, be always ex-officio Trus- 
tees." This provision, with various others of the original 
charter, was annulled after the Revolution, when, by the act 
of the Legislature of the State of New York, passed 13th 
April, 1787, it was, among other provisions relative to 
Columbia College, enacted, " that no persons shall be Trus- 
tees of the same in virtue of any office, character or 
description whatever." This, of course, vacated all the 
seats held ex-officio. But among the Trustees named in that 
same act, were several eminent Ministers and citizens of dif- 
ferent denominations, including the learned Jewish Rabbi, 
Gekshom Seixas, who was for many years one of the 
Trustees ; and ever since, up to this day, in the selection 
of Trustees, all vacancies being filled by the Board which 
thus perpetuates itself — members of different denominations 
are included. 

I am the more particular in this detail, because undeniably 
a prejudice injurious to the usefulness and best interests of 
the College has been engendered against it, and even now 
prevails to a considerable extent, as an exclusive Episcopal 
institution ; a prejudice which subjects it more or less to 
ostracism by other denominations, while, as it is a prejudice 
and wholly unfounded, no appeal can be made to Episcopa- 
lians, as such, by way of compensation, for favor to an In- 
stitution of their own forms and faith. 

The origin of this prejudice or error, doubtless, is to be 
traced to the earnestness with which the establishment of 
Columbia College, or as it was then known, King's College, 
was resisted, lest it should become in the colony an instru- 
ment of the established Church of England, — a resistance 
which caused a delay of more than two years in obtaining 
the charter from the Colonial Legislature; and what was 



33 

more prejudicial still, the diversion of one-half of certain 
funds voted by the Legislature to the College, but which 
were eventually divided between it and the Corporation of 
the city. 

The grant, moreover, to the College by Trinity Church, 
of a portion of the farm known as King's Farm, included 
conditions, which, in spite of the express prohibitions in the 
charter, might seem to warrant the inference that peculiar 
favor at least, if not positive preference, would be shown to 
students belonging to the Episcopal Church. 

These conditions were that the President should always 
be a member of the Episcopal Church, and that the morning 
and evening service in the College should be the liturgy or 
from the liturgy of the Church. As a matter of fact, how- 
ever, no such preference was ever manifested, or has ever 
been distinctly charged, and indeed the very first act of the 
Governors of King's College, after its incorporation, was to 
adopt, on the motion of Mr. Kitzema, the Minister of the 
Dutch Reformed Church, a memorial to the Governor of the 
Colony, asking by way of amendment to the charter, the 
establishment of a Professorship of Divinity, with a suitable 
salary, " for the education of such of the youth as might be 
intended for the Ministry in that Church." The prayer of 
the memorial was acceded to, and a Professorship of Divinity 
was authorised, " according to the doctrine, discipline and 
worship established by the National Synod of Dort." The 
Dutch being at that time the most numerous of any single 
denomination in the province, this concession to them of a 
privilege denied to other denominations, and not even claim- 
ed for that, from which the principal endowment of the Col- 
lege was drawn, must be taken as a decisive proof of a 
thoroughly liberal and Catholic spirit, as well as of a wise 
and wary policy on the part of the Episcopal friends of the 
College. 5 



34 

Nor can the condition of the grant from Trinity Church 
be regarded in any just view as exclusive. Practically, cer- 
tainly it is not exclusive ; for when it was desired to secure 
the services of an eminent scholar and clergyman of the 
Presbyterian Church — the late Dr. J. M. Mason — the office of 
Provost was created, so as to give to him the actual headship 
and direction of the College ; while, in order to comply with 
the language of the charter, the office, merely honorary, of 
President, was conferred upon an exemplary clergyman of 
the Church — the late Dr. Harris. Afterwards, upon the re- 
signation of Dr. Mason, the office of Provost was abolished, 
and the original duties and authority of the Presidency were 
restored, and vested in Dr. Harris, who for many years- 
discharged its duties most efficiently. 

As to the other condition of the Trinity Church grant, 
that the religious services, morning and evening, should be 
the liturgy, or from the liturgy, it has long, if not always, 
been so construed that no religious services are performed 
in the College, other than the reading, each morning, in the 
Chapel, by the President, of a portion of Scripture, and a 
brief form of prayer prepared for the purpose, and in which 
all Christian men, of whatever denomination, may join. 

From this statement, it must be obvious — First, That no 
ground whatever exists for characterizing Columbia College 
as a sectarian Institution; and, Secondly, That it never can 
become such, and therefore that it. may fairly challenge sup- 
port from all denominations, since it shows equal impartiality 
to all. 

The original buildings of Columbia College were con- 
structed by means derived from private subscription in the 
Colony and in Great Britain ; the land west of Broadway, 
between what are now Barclay and Murray streets, being 



35 

at the time wholly unproductive, although now covered 
with houses, pierced by streets, and constituting one of the 
oldest parts of the city. This grant was made by the 
Church in 1755. Twelve years afterwards, in 17G7, a con- 
cession was obtained for the College from the Governor — Sir 
Henry Moore— of 24,000 acres of land, lying, as was then 
supposed, within the Northern boundaries of the State of 
New York. When, however, the State of Vermont was 
constituted, this tract fell within its boundaries, and hence 
was lost to the College. 

After the close of the Revolutionary War, a desire of 
constituting a University seems to have been entertained, 
to consist of all the Colleges and Academies in the State, 
to be placed under the supervision and government of one 
Board of Regents. A law to this effect was accordingly 
passed in May, 1784, subjecting Columbia College, in com- 
mon with other Colleges and Academies, to the supervision 
of the Regents of the University ; and they immediately 
undertook the appointment of Professors, and the establish- 
ment of a course of literary and scientific instruction upon 
a large scale, and far beyond the means of the College. 

A small part, only, of these extensive plans was carried 
out. In April, 1787, an additional law, regulating the Uni- 
versity, restored Columbia College to the independent exer- 
cise of its own chartered rights, under Trustees of its own 
selection, and who maintain their own succession. 

It cannot be without interest at this day, to recall the 
names of the Trustees embodied in this bill of 1787. They 
were : — James Duane, Samuel Provost, John H. Living- 
ston, Richard Varick, Alex. Hamilton, John Mason, 
Jas. Wilson, John Gano, Brockholst Livingston, Robert 
Harper, junior, Daniel Gross, John Christoff Kunwe, 



36 

Walter Livingston, Lewis A. Scott, Joseph Delaplaine, 
Leonard Lispenard, Abraham Beach, John Lawrence, 
John Rutherford, Morgan Lewis,- John Cochran, Gershom 
Seixas, Charles McKnight, John Jones, Malachi Treat, 
Samuel Bard, Nicholas Romaine, Benjamin Kissam, Ebe- 
nezer Crosby. 

In 1790, on the Report of the Regents of the University, 
that Columbia College and the incorporated Academies 
needed funds, an Act was passed for the encouragement of 
literature, whereby, for the benefit of the Academies and 
the College, the Regents were empowered to take possession 
of certain lands belonging to the State, and among them 
Governor's Island, within the City and County of New 
York — to lease such lands, and from time to time to dispose 
of and apply the rents thereof for the better advancement 
of science and literature in the said College, and in the 
Academies now or hereafter to be incorporated. 

This grant, so far as it applied to Governor's Island, did 
not take effect; but in April, 1792, the Legislature, with 
well-timed liberality, made a most generous grant to the 
College, " in aid of its funds, so diminished," as the preamble 
of the Act recites, " by the events of the late war, as to 
render it impracticable for the. Trustees to defray certain 
necessary expenses, which have accrued to the College in 
consequence of the alteration of the streets of the City of 
New York, and to repair the losses which the College sus- 
tained during the late war, with respect to its Library, and 
to incur such further expenses as would render the Semi- 
nary more extensively useful." 

In consideration thereof, the sum of £1500 was voted for 
enlarging the Library, £200 for a chemical apparatus, and 
£1200 for the purpose of building a wall necessary to sup- 



37 

port the grounds of the College ; £5,000 were added, to 
provide for building a hall and an additional wing to the 
College, while an annual payment was ordered of £750, for 
five years, in aid of the payment of the salaries of Professors. 

In 1802, by an Act amending the Act of 1792, certain 
lands at Ticonderoga and Crown Point were granted to the 
College. 

In March, 1810, owing to difficulties in conducting the 
management of this Institution, by reason of certain restric- 
tions and defects in the charter, on application of the Trus- 
tees, to the Legislature, the Corporation was continued, all 
its rights and powers specified in a new Act, and all provi- 
sions inconsistent, or that conflicted therewith, were repealed. 

In this Act the names of the Trustees appear, and among 
them, six of those who were Trustees in '87, viz: — John H. 
Livingston, Richard Variok, Brockholst Livingston, 
Abraham Beach, John Lawrence, and Gershom Seixas. 
Their associates were Richard Harrison, John Wells, 
William Moore, Cornelius F. Bogert, John M. Mason, 
Edward Dunscomb, George C Anthon, John N. Abeel, 
James Tillary, J. H. Hobart, Benjamin Moore, Egbert 
Benson, Governeur Morris, Jacob Radcliff, Rufus King, 
Samuel Miller, Oliver Wolcott, and John B. Romeyn. 

Of all these men, eminent in their day, and who have left 
blessed memories behind, but one survives — the venerable 
and excellent Dr. Miller, who, only last year, by reason of 
his great age, relinquished the Presidency of the Theological 
Seminary at Princeton, but who still resides in that town, 
taking deep interest in all that concerns the progress of 
sound letters, and tends to promote the welfare and elevate 
the character of his countrymen. 



38 

In April, 1814, the property known as the Botanic Garden 
was granted to Columbia College, on condition that within 
twelve years the College establishment be removed thither. 
This condition was rescinded by the Legislature in 1819, 
and a grant of $10,000 was further made to the College in 
that year by the Legislature. 

It is with a double purpose that these liberal appropria- 
tions by the people of the State of New York to Columbia 
College, have been thus prominently brought to view, — 
First, As testifying the enlightened spirit which, in times 
past, actuated our Legislature ; and, Secondly, As cumula- 
tive proof that no just imputation of sectarianism lies 
against the Charter, the conduct, or the course of instruc- 
tion of the College, since it is well known that even a well- 
founded suspicion of any such tendency would have de- 
feated all Legislative aid. 

Thus favored of the public authorities and fostered by 
the public treasure, Columbia College has gone on her 
course with a steady, liberal, and, let it be added, a suc- 
cessful aim, to educate good scholars, good citizens, and 
good men. 

It belongs not to this occasion, nor is mine the voice 
qualified properly to commemorate the distinguished men, 
who, as Presidents and Professors in this Institution, have 
acted their parts well in furnishing forth to the Republic of 
Letters, and to the Republic of Nations, an annual contri- 
bution of well-trained scholars. 

But I cannot withhold my tribute, however feeble, to the 
learning, devotedness and excellence of my immediate pre- 
decessor, Dr. Nathaniel F. Moore, whom sickness retains 
at home this evening ; nor fail to express my gratification 



at seeing here present among us, in renovated health, 
and with unabated interest in the welfare and honor of the 
College, his immediate predecessor, Dr. Wm. A. Duer — 
a name identical, from our early annals, with patriotism, 
eloquence and learning. 

Our scheme of instruction will speak for itself; and faith- 
fully carried out by the Professors, and diligently pursued 
by the students, it must produce results honorable to the 
College, useful to the State, and abundantly remunerating 
the large measure of liberality shown to us by the Legisla- 
ture. 

The Faculty consists of a President and six Professors. 
The course of instruction embraces large and thorough 
study of the classics, the exact and physical sciences, moral 
philosophy, English composition, and the German language 
and literature. 

In order to evince their disposition to meet what was 
thought to be a want of the city, by placing within the 
reach of those who did not desire to pursue the full course 
of this College, an opportunity for more practical instruction 
as it is commonly esteemed, the Trustees, in 1830, estab- 
lished a " Scientific and Literary Course," open to all ; and 
efforts were not wanting on the part of the Faculty of the 
College, to render it both an attractive and useful course. 

But it did not find favor with the public, and upon a revi- 
sion of the statutes in 1843, it was abolished. 

One permanent good result from the attempt, however, 
was a large increase of the philosophical apparatus of the 
College, and a valuable addition to its Library, — which, in 
order to give efficiency to the new course, were purchased 



40 

by the Trustees, and now remain for the use and Improve- 
ment of the matriculated students. 

A number of Free Scholarships were also founded,- and 
these still exist in the gift of several Corporations. The 
Corporation of the City of New York, the Corporation of 
the City of Brooklyn, the Trustees of the New York Public 
School Society, the Trustees and Directors of the Clinton 
Hall Association, those of the Mercantile Library Associa- 
tion, of the Mechanics' Institute, and of the General Society 
of Mechanics and Tradesmen, in the City of New York, 
are entitled to two Scholarships each, and the Corporation 
of Jersey City to one. This constitutes fifteen Free 
Scholarships. 

Moreover, every religious denomination in the city is 
entitled to have always one student, who may be designed 
for the ministry, educated free of all charges of tuition ; 
and every school ( except the Grammar School of the Col- 
lege) from which four paying scholars are admitted in one 
year, has the privilege of sending one scholar to be educated 
gratuitously by the College. 

As a matter of fact, these scholarships are eagerly availed 
of; and at this moment, of one hundred and ten matricu- 
lated students, twenty-one are free scholars. 

This, it must be admitted, is a large and liberal return by 
the College for the aid it has received from the State — a 
return made, too, in the most Catholic spirit, and one which 
it may, without indelicacy, be urged in this address — would 
seem to entitle the College to a larger share of the public 
interest, and a larger support from the inhabitants of our 
city and its suburban cities, than it has yet received. 

The capacity of the College for instruction is far beyond 



41 

the demands made upon it. The same Faculty which edu- 
cates one hundred and ten students, could as readily and as 
well educate two or three times that number ; and with the 
rapidly increasing population in the midst of which we are 
placed, it would seem the result of ignorance of the true 
character, views and labors of the College, that no larger 
number of students is gathered in its halls. 

It cannot be from indifference to good education, for we 
see — and we rejoice to see — other Institutions of high bear- 
ing rising up around us and flourishing. In the New York 
University, and in the Free Academy, we see generous 
competitors in a noble career, and we bid them God speed ! 
There is room for all — there is need of all. We have like 
objects, aims and hopes, and can have no other rivalry than 
that of seeking to excel in the career common to all. We 
are of the same republic of letters — of the same family 
household ; and not inaptly may be applied to us the passage 
from the Latin poet, so finely applied by the great States- 
man of America, to our United States : — 

Fades non omnibus una, 
Aec diversa tamen, quails decet esse sororum. 

While institutions such as these flourish, the Republic will 
stand and flourish — and social life and civil life — the arts 
that adorn and the arms that protect our Fabric of Freedom, 
will derive fresh lustre and fresh strength from the nurture 
here found. 

In this claim for support to collegiate institutions, it need 
scarcely be added, that we by no means overlook the im- 
portance of schools, public and private — which are, in fact, 
the nurseries of the college. The wise liberality of our Legis- 
lature has thrown open wide to all children between the age 
of four and sixteen, the public schools of our city, free from 





42 

any charge whatever for tuition: under the active and in- 
telligent supervision of the Board of Education — (whose 
efficient and able President, I am proud to say, is an alum- 
nus of this College) — and of the Trustees of the Public 
School Society — skilful and competent teachers are provided 
in their sfihools, so that as a matter of fact, the Public Schools, 
in the range of what they undertake to teach, are not sur- 
passed, probably, by any of the private schools of the city. 

For these private schools, nevertheless, there is and 
always will be, an absolute necessity ; and to them, in an 
especial manner, must this College be ever indebted for its 
supply of Students — and therefore in them, and in the suc- 
cess, the standing, the fair fame, and full and adequate re- 
muneration of their masters, do we feel a direct and lively 
interest. 

But neither Legislative acts nor liberal compensation will 
suffice to make schoolmasters what they should be, without 
amore enlightened state of public opinion in respect of them, 
and especially in regard of the estimation in which the pro- 
fession of schoolmaster should be held. 

That needs to be greatly elevated. We must learn to 
look upon the schoolmaster — as in truth he is — the great 
trustee of the future. He is to mould, form and fashion the 
minds, the hearts, and the conduct of those to whom the 
future belongs — that future towards which all the aims of 
the present tend, as to a goal of greater happiness and im- 
proved prosperity. 

" Man never is but always to be blest." 

And whatever the joys or the success of the passing hour, 
we are all prone to look forward to loftier success and more 
ample enjoyment in some period to come. 



. 43 

To the sculptor, who from the shapeless marble reveals the 
glorious statue within, and by skill and labor brings it forth, 
almost ahving, breathing thing, to enchant the world, we 
award high honors, high station, and high rewards — and 
justly do we so. But to the artist who takes the immortal 
mind, and with plastic hand and patient observation, and 
ample knowledge, and unwearying industry, and refined 
taste, and deep consciousness of the almost awful responsi- 
bility of his work, fashions it to usefulness, restrains or sub- 
dues its evil propensities, calls forth its nobler aspirations, 
and fits it for honor here, for immortality hereafter — to such 
an artist who, has seen civic wreaths decreed, public honors 
paid, or even the stipulated pecuniary compensation, for the 
most part, other than grudgingly extended ? 

This should not be ; and until the schoolmaster is made the 
companion in the land of those in it, who are most eminent — 
until in the social scale and in general consideration, and in 
the distribution of public honors and high trusts — he shall 
feel and find that — other things being equal — none are to be 
preferred to him — and that if not foremost among his peers, 
he at least is peer among the foremost — par inter primos — 
the full measure of his usefulness, the full, scope of his indis- 
pensable authority cannot be attained. 

In reference to the proper influence of educated and 
learned men — for such schoolmasters are, or should be — 
I cannot resist quoting from the wise Bacon, that "Learned 
men forgotten in states, and not living in the eyes of men, are 
like the images of Cassius and Brutus at the funeral of Junia, 
of which, not being represented, as many others were, Taci- 
tus saith — Eo ipso prcefulgebant quod non visebantur. 

In our public ceremonials and festivals be places of honor 
ever assigned to the public instructors — if we would have 



44 

them such as they should be, both in their own esteem and 
in that of their countrymen. 

But to get back to the point upon which I was comment- 
ing — the comparative paucity of students in our college, and 
the possible explanation therof. I proceed to detail, with 
some minuteness our course of instruction, which has already 
been partially referred to, and to the nature of which is 
sometimes ascribed the apparent public indifference to the 
College. Let us look a little carefully at this matter. 

Our rock of foundation is the Classics. Our terms of ad- 
mission presuppose no inconsiderable progress in Latin and 
Greek before the student can be received. Our standard in 
this respect is pi-obabJy higher than at other like institutions 
of our country. Is it too high ? Is too much time assigned 
to this department ? All experience says no. And yet it 
may not be doubted, that objections are felt against this por- 
tion of our course. Unwisely, most unwisely — even in a 
merely utilitarian sense — is the time given to classical in- 
struction, deemed misplaced. There is no more palpable 
error than to assume that classical studies — familiarity with 
the tongues, and the great writers of Greece and Rome, are 
only useful to professional men. They are even as know- 
ledge, a mine of wealth to all men — and as training and 
disciplining the mind — refining while they enrich it — and 
fortifying while they adorn, they are of permanent, universal, 
ineffaceable value. 

"Expel Greek and Latin," says Dr. Arnold, the great 
schoolmaster of our day, "and you confine the views of 
existing generations to themselves and their immediate pre- 
decessors ; you will cut off so many centuries of the world's 
experience and place us in the same state as if the human 
race had first come into existence in the year 1500. For it 
is nothing to say that a few learned individuals might still 



45 

study classical literature ; the effect produced on the public 
mind would be no greater than that which has resulted from 
the labors of our Oriental scholars ; it would not spread be- 
yond themselves; and men in general, after a few generations, 
would know as little of Greece and Rome, as they do actu- 
ally of China and Hindostan. But such an ignorance would 
be incalculably more to be regretted. With the Asiatic 
mind we have no more connection or sympathy than that 
which is derived from our common humanity. But the 
mind of the Greek and the Roman is, in all the essential points 
of its constitution, our own ; and not only so, but it is our own 
mind developed to an extraordinary degree of perfection. 
Wide as is the difference between us with regard to those 
physical instruments which minister to our uses or our plea- 
sures, although the Greeks and Romans had no steam engines, 
no printing presses, no manner's compass, no telescope, no 
microscope, no gunpowder, yet in our moral and political 
views, in those matters which most determine human charac- 
ter? there is a perfect resemblance in these respects." 

But it is objected that in manhood the Greek and Latin are 
so often thrown aside. Yet it by no means follows that be- 
cause the man throws aside the books of the youth, he for- 
gets all that he ever gained from them. Far otherwise — for 
even unconsciously to himself, the educated man relains 
" in the general liberality of his tastes, and comparative com- 
prehensiveness of his views and notions," much of the effect 
of early training; and as upon the face of Nature the bright- 
ness of the verdure upon the surface, betrays the unseen flow 
of the living waters beneath, so in the progress of life, the 
ornate and fluent speech, and elegance and refinement of 
sentiments and of conduct, may safely be referred in most 
instances to the influence of the hidden, and perhaps even 
unsuspected streams, of early classical instruction. 

I cannot resist quoting on this head a passage of the fine 
apostrophe to the Greek and Latin language by Henry Nel- 
son Coleridge, in his book on the study of the Greek 
Poets : — 



46 

" Greek ! the shrine of the genius of the old world, as uni- 
versal as our race, as individual as ourselves, of infinite 
flexibility, of indefatigable strength, with the complication 
and distinctness of Nature herself; to which nothing was 
vulgar, from which nothing was excluded — speaking to the 
ear like Italian — speaking to the mind like English, with 
words like pictures, with words like the gossamer film of the 
summer." 

# # * # # # # # ■ # 

" Latin ! the voice of Empire and of War — of Law and of the 
State — inferior to its half parent and rival in the embodying 
of passion and the distinguishing of thought — but equal to it 
in sustaining the measured march of history, and superior to 
it in the indignant declamation of moral satire — stamped 
with the mark of an imperial and despotizing Republic — 
rigid in its construction — parsimonious in its synonymes — 
impressive in its conciseness, the true language of History, 
instinct with the spirit of Nations and not with the passions 
of individuals — breathing the maxims of the world and not 
the tenets of the schools, one and uniform in its air and spirit, 
whether touched by the stern and haughty Sallust, by the 
open and discursive Livy, and by the reserved and thought- 
ful Tacitus." 

Would any of you — friends, parents of our youth — con- 
sent that languages, of which all this and more can alike be 
eloquently and truly said, should remain sealed to their young 
minds, or strangers to their maturer studies ? Surely," surely 
not. 

But over and above the Latin and Greek, the study of 
the higher mathematics, astronomy and chemistry are here 
pursued, and their application to the business of life and its 
wants, illustrated ;— the use and nature of the steam engine, 
and the wanderings of the stars in their course, may alike be 
learned here ; — the business of the civil engineer, and the 
principles which guide the navigator over trackless seas, are 
all laid open to the enquiring mind ; for we strive to make 
useful as well as learned men. 



47 

The principles of composition, the elegance of speech, the 
beauties of style, the force, richness, and vastness of the 
English tongue, are all made familiar to ears that will hear, 
and to understandings that will comprehend ; and, finally, the 
evidences of natural and revealed religion, are pointed out 
with sufficient distinctness to excite interest, and stimulate 
the awakened mind to further and fuller inquiries. 

Of later years, through the liberality of a German, we have 
a German Professorship. Mr. Gebhard, having long lived 
and prospered among us, obeyed a generous impulse in leav- 
ing at his death in the city of his adoption and residence, 
some enduring token of his good will, and therefore founded 
and endowed a Professorship, which bears his name — of the 
German language and literature. 

The Trustees of the College, in order to meet fully the 
views of the founder, thenceforth constituted instruction in 
the German as a part of the stated Collegiate course. 

It is the only modern language thus privileged — for it is the 
only one for instruction in which, ample provision has been 
furnished to the College. 

It can hardly be doubted, indeed, that like liberality 
evinced in respect of other modern languages, or other 
special branches of education, would meet with like appre- 
ciation and concurrence on the part of the Trustees, and 
that the College Curriculum would be so modified, as still 
within the allotted term of four years, to embrace courses 
differing for different individuals, according to their tastes, 
capacities, or ultimate destination — but all tending to the 
one great end, thorough education, and all entitling those 
who should successfully and diligently pursue them, to Col- 
legiate honors. 



48 

For it can neither be the interest nor the desire of the 
enlightened men charged with the government of this Col- 
lege, to oppose themselves to such change or progress as 
the times may call for ; always holding fast to the old foun- 
dations, but building thereon such superstructure as may 
better suit the public wants. 

Such progress should be encouraged — cannot, indeed, be 
resisted. Even in England, where usages and traditions 
"have the force of law, the venerable Universities of Oxford 
and Cambridge are undergoing essential modifications in 
their schemes, and modes, and topics of instruction ; and 
nearer home, at Harvard University, through the munifi- 
cence of one individual, a course of instruction in the prac- 
tical application of science has been founded, magnificently 
endowed, and is now in successful progress, under the 
auspices of the great name of Agassiz. 

I speak to the ear of New York merchants, with hearts 
not less liberal, with means certainly not less ample, than 
those to which Harvard owes such an endowment. Shall 
it be ever thus, that we must go out of our own city to look 
for such examples of well-considered and well-directed 
munificence ? 

Might it not, for instance, well become the Tyre of the 
West, opulent through commerce, to endow, in its own 
ancient seat of learning, a Professorship of Commerce ? — 
And even more instant and urgent than that, why should 
this great seat of the navigation and commerce of the 
United States be without an Observatory,* and without a 



* Lest the claim urged above, for means to found an Observatory, of such charac- 
ter and construction, and with such superior instruments, as our position and wants as 
the great Commercial City of the West seem to justify — should mislead opinion as to 



49 

Telescope fitted to the wants of Astronomy, as that science 
is now developed ? And who more interested than the 
merchants and ship-owners of New York, in founding such 
an establishment, and in providing it with instruments ? 

Again — in our polyglot city, what more desirable or 
natural use of wealth, to those who can dispose of it, than 
to provide means, through Professorships of French and 
Spanish, for a thorough appreciation of the language and 
literature of these two tongues ? 

I hazard these suggestions, doubting somewhat as to the 
fitness of putting them forth on this occasion, but doubting 
not at all of their intrinsic fitness, nor of the great perma- 
nent benefits which such applications of the wealth of our 
city would ensure to its remotest descendants, to the gene- 
rations that now live, and to the whole Republic. 



what the Astronomical Professor of this College has done and is doing with such 
means and instruments as he can command, the following note is added : — 

An Observatory, as good as many of the Observatories in Europe, has been obtain- 
ed by uniting the instruments belonging to the College with those of an Amateur 
Astronomer of this city — Mr. Lewis M. Rutherford. This contains a fine Tran- 
sit Instrument, of four feet focal length, made by Troughton & Symmes, of London, 
belonging to the College, mounted on stone piers ; a Clock with Mercurial Pendulum, 
contributed by Mr. G. W. Blunt, of this city; an Altitude and Azimuth Circle, 
made by Troughton & Symmes, with Reading Micrometers, belonging to the Col- 
lege ; and a fine Equatorial Instrument, made, the optical part by Mr. Pitz, of this 
city— than whom there is no better workman in the world — the mechanical, by Gregg 
& Rupp, belonging to Mr. Rutherford. The Object Glass of the Telescope of 
this instrument is six inches in diameter ; it is provided with a Position Micrometer, 
made by Troughton & Symmes, and a fine Chronemeter, by Parkinson & Frod- 
SHam, both belonging to the College. 

The Transit Instrument makes observations for time ; the Altitude and Azimuth 
for latitude ; and the Equatorial, by differentiation with the Micrometer, determines 
the right ascension and declinnion of unknown objects, makes maps of particular por- 
tions of the Heavens, and measures angles of position and distance of double stars 
suspected of physical connection and orbitual motion. These instruments are suffi- 
cient to make valuable contributions to the advancement of Astronomical Science ; bu* 
means yet are wanting to secure the labors of competent observers. 

7 



50 

Religion, Morals, Art, Science, Philosophy, Letters — such 
are the triumphs — such the policy — such the memorials 
which I desiderate for my country ; and especially do I 
deprecate for her — and all the more earnestly, as the ten- 
dency of popular feeling seems now too much in that direc- 
tion — that stern policy of empire and of conquest which the 
classic poet of antiquity, speaking through Anchises, lays 
down for his future Romans : — 

Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento 
Ho8 tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem 
Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos. 

Not such be our ambition ; but rather to convert the 
sword into the ploughshare, and to give our earnest and 
active natures to subduing the earth, and rendering it a 
fitter habitation for peaceful men — to cultivating the arts, 
the sciences, the humanities — to building up Churches; 
Libraries, Colleges and Schools — mindful always of that 
future for which the present is only the preparation, and 
more zealous to leave to our children and their children's 
children a free, peaceful, educated, moral Republic — pros- 
perous, because wise — strong, because united — and just 
and moderate, because strong — than a fierce, unrelenting, 
despotizing Republic, such as Rome was. 

To such results, you, who honor this occasion with your 
presence, can do much, where little— very little — through 
private munificence, has yet been attempted. 

It will sound strangely, doubtless, at this period of the 
world, and in this land of free thought, free acts, and Chris- 
tian light and civilization, to refer for example meet for our 
imitation, to the Saracenic rule, which, from the Ninth to 
the Sixteenth Century, throughout the vast extent of the 
Arabian Empire in three-quarters of the globe, maintained 



51 

literature and science in the utmost brilliancy — the progress 
of learning following the progress of Saracenic victories, 
and making Bagdad the capital of letters, as well as of the 
Caliphs. 

That Haroun Al-Raschid, with whose wealth and power 
and wondrous works, our childhood was wont to be excited 
in the Arabian Nights, was a real and substantial friend of 
letters ; and one of the finest passages in Sismondi's beautiful 
work on the literature of the South of Europe, is given to 
the celebration of the magnificence of this Caliph, and his 
son, Al-Mamoum the Seventh of the race of the Abassides. 

Within a century of the period assigned to that of the 
burning of the Alexandrian Library by the order of the 
Caliph Omar — the period of the deepest barbarism among 
the Saracens — the family of the Abassidis ascended the 
throne of the Caliphs, and introduced a passionate love of 
art, of science, and of poetry. Haroun Al-Raschid never 
built a Mosque without attaching to it a School, and never 
took a journey without carrying many learned men in his 
train. He laid deep the foundation of the love of knowl- 
edge among the Arabians. But his son, Al-Mamoum, was 
the great protector and father of Arabian literature. He 
invited to his Court, and retained there by favor and reward, 
all the learned men from whatever country he could collect 
them — and from the subject provinces of Syria, Armenia and 
Egypt, received, as the most precious tribute they could 
render, all important books. 

The progress of the nation in science was proportionate 
to the zeal of the Sovereign. In all parts, in every town, 
Schools, Academies and Colleges were established, and 
numerous and well-filled Libraries flourished in all the large 
cities. The rich Libraries of Fez and Laraca, preserved 



52 

precious works to Europe ; for in Africa, which we are 
wont to associate in our minds only with ideas of ignorance 
and barbarism, numerous Libraries existed. Every chief 
city of Spain, then too under Saracenic rule, had its Libra- 
ries open for public instruction, at a period when all the rest 
of Europe, without books, learning or culture, was plunged 
in the most disgraceful ignorance. 

How does our country in this XIX century compare with 
barbarous Africa in these respects in the Xllth or XlVth ? 
What do our sovereign people for themselves in the cause 
of letters — at all comparable with the enlightened care for 
the intellectual culture of their subjects, shown by those 
whom we stigmatize as infidel Arabs and sensual despots? 

But how is it even in our own day, that little towns in 
Germany — little towns in Italy — have libraries, colleges and 
academies, far surpassing ours. There is a fragment of the 
dominions of the House of Brunswick — a small town with 
the almost unpronounceable name of Wolfenbuttle — which 
has a choice library of 300,000 volumes — one of the libraries 
of the world. So, too, in the old town of Padua, in Lom- 
bardy, some 1400 students — there have been 4000 — frequent 
the lectures, and in Pavia, arcades, long drawn out, are filled 
in like manner with scholars. Yet these are decaying towns 
in a decaying country, where man persists in counteracting 
the goodness of God — while here in our fresh land, where 
intellect is free — wealth abounding — and enterprise unfet- 
tered, we can point to no such proofs that the value of 
knowledge, and the means of acquiring and disseminating 
it, are appreciated by the people. 

Nor in these remarks would I be considered as addressing 
myself to men only. I ask the aid and countenance of 
women, too, of mothers and of sisters. 



53 

It was to the enlightened zeal for letters of a woman — 
Maria Theresa — that the Italian Universities were in- 
debted for a large measure of protection and means of sup- 
port — and her armorial bearings still, or until within very 
recent years, scattered throughout the collegiate buildings, 
at once attested the fact of her liberality, and the grateful 
memory retained of it. 

So again, one of the most learned and distinguished Pro- 
fessors in the University of Bologna, was a young woman — 
Donna Maria Agnesi — who at the age of nineteen, lectured 
from the mathematical chair. Her two published volumes 
of " Analytical Institutes," are to be found in the library at 
West Point, and thus the young female Professor of Bologna, 
becomes an instructor to the young soldiers of America. 

This instance is not cited, however, for imitation, so much 
as for encouragement — as shewing together with that of 
Maria Theresa and one even more striking with that of Mrs. 
Somerville, whose admirable astronomical work on the 
" Mechanism of the Heavens" is a text book in many col- 
leges — that when the heart is in the work woman is not to be 
surpassed by man. 

I leave the subject with the mothers and sisters who hear 
me, with this single additional remark, that as their agency 
in fashioning the opinions most likely to influence youth, is 
very powerful — their responsibility is in' proportion great for 
so fashioning these opinions, that they shall encourage in 
young men manliness of character and cultivation of mind — 
the love of letters and the love of truth. Armed in such 
panoply of proof, they may go forth into the world, with 
head erect and heart elate, to take their place among men, 
and to do with the heart of men, the work which in the 
Providence of God shall be set before them. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




029 929 202 2 



